In this post, I wish to protest the measuring out of life with little coffee spoons. On the eve of my birthday, I went to bed wrapped in warm thoughts of the world in which I live, then awoke at 25 with a magnificent snort of disgust. Multiple revelations ensued, the first of which was: ”I really dislike Twitter.” Most of my objections to Twitter are not exclusive to Twitter, per se. Rather I dislike Twitter for its unchecked exploitation of mutual cultural harms, especially those that plague social networks.

3. It confirms our vulgar susceptibility to the technological arms-race.

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Even as I write this I choke beneath the weight of these crumudgeonly sentiments (Help?!?!?!). I feel hopelessly old and threadbare. Perhaps one of you can help me find redeeming qualities I have yet to discover.

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* Ironically, these aims, self-promotion and celebrity, conflict in the Twittersphere since Twitter is anything but meritocratic (as character-limitations decrease, humanity’s profundity seems to increase).

When art poses a threat to viewers, it is often because they recognize that some part of their worldview is being challenged or undermined. Ironically, in most cases, discomfort is essential for further maturation. Nowhere is this discomfort more acute than within a text, when one character’s presuppositions clash with another’s. The writers of NBC’s The Office thrive on characterization and conflict, but in season five, episode 18, they really outdid themselves.

If you aren’t already familiar with the show, let me warn you: this episode loses all impact if you haven’t been immersed in the narrative all along (don’t watch it!). NBC’s The Office is a Thursday night television comedy formatted as a mock-umentary of Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company’s Scranton office, and the show is now in the throes of its fifth season. (The BBC TV original, also entitled The Office, premiered in 2002 and starred the talented writer/comedian Ricky Gervais.)

I am, at best, an on-again/off-again follower. To be honest, I can’t bear to watch The Office’s unmitigated portrayal of humanity in all its shame more than about once a month. (My gut’s just too weak and my pride’s too strong.) But if you are an avid follower, I will also warn you: you won’t like this episode. It will be the most discomforting one yet, but for all the right reasons.

A few months ago P. and I discussed the normative characterization in The Office. Last week’s episode blew the top off our hypnotically-sustained conclusions. And I want to tip my hat to the writers’ brilliant–if likely soon-to-be-eradicated–insertion of literary savoir faire. Up until episode 18, our sympathies primarily fell where Jim Halpert’s did. For better or for worse, Jim (John Krasinski) proved our normative character, the standard and guide for how we would morally perceive and emotionally respond to others’ actions and the circumstances they face. Occasionally, we hated Jim for doing those things we ourselves might have done, for saying those things similar to those things we hate ourselves for saying. Yet for months we continued, with few exceptions, to measure the entire office experience through the eyes of this character, imagining ourselves in his place, working in an unbelievably afflicted office environment and fighting to survive without succumbing to the insanity of it all.

This week, Michael Scott (Steve Carell) got a new boss, Charles Minor, played by the infamous Wire actor Idris Elba. And in the span of two minutes, the normative character dramatically shifted from Jim to Minor. And our entire world shifted upside down. (And we hated ourselves for ever wishing Michael would receive his dues, Jim would have a joke turned on himself, and Dwight would be the one to play his cards right for once.) Suddenly, as Charles Minor walks into the office, the stunning weight of indisputable reality falls down on our heads. We, as viewers, end up squirming in our seats as we recognize our own complicity in this childlike game. These characters that we’ve come to tolerate should have never been tolerated. This infantile drama with which we’ve amused ourselves for months is headed straight for a painful, inevitable horizon we’ve been all too content to ignore. But it’s a horizon that is overdue (and boy, do we seem juvenile for regretting that fact). We find ourselves, like Jim, feeling quite foolish for not seeing the need to truly rise above it all much sooner.

And that is the reason, if the producers want to continue to a sixth season (duh!), this literary savoir faire will be scrubbed away next week. Such reality points in only one direction: the end. If it were a novel, we’d have only three chapters left and a bittersweet smile on our faces.

“In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth.”

How many times have you been annoyed by the marginalia left by some idiot–huge and redoubled exclamation points, uncomplimentary expressions (”absurd,” “oh, come now,” “for God’s sake!!!!”), and long, scrawled explanations of what seems perfectly clear in the printed text? The critical points may be well taken, but the margin is no place to utter them. Pencilings of this sort–including compulsive underlining, a sophomoric affliction if there ever was one–are bad enough; even worse is marking with ink.

Nevertheless, I desecrate.* I ravage. How else will I successfully plunder when the time comes to borrow those words from the page and richly recall the plans I had for them? I will also confess to girlish daydreams of someday stumbling upon the scribbled marginalia of a beloved author, thinker, or critic in a book carelessly discarded at one of the millions of thrift stores that plead for exploration. How ridiculous my delight would be to discover his or her delight or displeasure in the passage at hand.

For me, marginalia also claims fanciful significance, a most embarrassing admission. Plagued by an indulgent imagination, my conscious mind organizes thoughts and discoveries in both “files” and “footnotes.” “Files,” inexplicably named so in elementary school, consist of discoveries I don’t yet know what to make of, things my gut tells me I should find significant and relevant even as I don’t. “Footnotes” represent nomadic facts/truths which prove equally germane to a dozen topics. “Files” and “footnotes” are responsible for the precious notional marginalia inspiring me to defend the actual joy.

In defending marginalia, I am finding it the perfect stuff for the link-happy redemption I seek after the cruel unraveling of my most recent list attempt. So without further consternation, I will form a list of marginalia “filed” and “footnoted” over the past four days:

• Do you judge a book by its cover? Find one more reason to do so at Penguin’s blog post on the Book Designs of the Year. But consider yourself warned, Pynchon fans argue that you ought do otherwise.
• Google Books continues to dream big about “little-seen” books, even while research warns that online reading may not be a suitable replacement for the printed word. Be that as it may, John Yemma, editor of The Christian Science Monitor, suggests that the printed word has truly become a luxury once more.
• But what about the auditory? Thanks to my mother’s insistence on reading us literature aloud from her armchair, I hold a special place in my heart for audio books. Audio renditions of literature can both surprise, as Maud Newton found when sifting through the British Library Archives, and delight, as I rediscovered upon hearing John Lithgow’s reading of “Taste,” a short story by children’s author Roald Dahl.
• Sunday P. humored me by suggesting we watch one of my favorite movies (for the 9th time), The Winslow Boy (1999), a beautiful David Mamet film adaptation of the late Sir Terence Rattigan’s stage-play. The movie’s message inspired me to hunt up David Mamet’s political, coming-out essay: “Why I am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead’ Liberal,” published in March at the Village Voice, and wonder at his bold, refreshing political transformation.
• In the New York Times, Stanley Fish publishes a bizarre and dubiously relevant list of the “10 Best American Movies,” only two of which follow the golden 1950s.
• Many are quibbling over the artistic and social function of video games. Last year Steven Poole argued against a simple classification of gaming as “play.” This year John Lanchester turns the London Review of Books into a launching point for the discussion of video games’ artistic merits. Jane McGonigal, spokeswoman for the Institute For The Future, encourages museums to adopt an opportunistic view of the gaming industry as museums seek to reaffirm their relevance and innovative spirit in the 21st century.
• Weisberg finishes his list of Bushisms with a humorous “Top 25,” highlighting the importance of syntax and precision.

*Out of respect for Altick, I marked the above passage from The Art of Literary Research with a hurriedly-fashioned, sticky note bookmark.